Looking at trends, systems, organizations, politics, industries and how they interact. I’m at https://twitter.com/joelfirenze.

Aug 12

Khorgos — a key rail node on China’s Belt and Road Initiative

In one of my initial posts about the tracing the Belt and Road Initiatives, I had focused on the China-Kazakh border. I had identified a town — Druzhba, on the China-Kazakh border, that I thought was one of the key areas. It still is one, but I had also left out an important node in this while venture — the Khorgos Dryport facility on the China-Kazakhstan border. And so, here it is.

Khorgos, 1984

The patches of green are farmland. I repeat this for 2003.

Khorgos, 2003

Here, we begin to observe the development of some facilities on the Chinese side of the border.

China-Kazakh border, Chinese side — 2016

This is the zoomed in detail of the Chinese side of the China-Kazakhstan border (the yellow line is the boundary).

2016 images show the the presence of the rail freight facility.

The Google Earth icon here is misleading — the actual facility appears to be the left-of-centre facility. I zoom in:

This seems to be the actual Khorgos Dryport facility. The Google Map marker hints at a larger facility, but until the satellite images are more updated, all I can see is a desert for now.

So here it is: a new place to check for China’s progress on the Belt and Road Initiative. Khorgos, on the China-Kazakhstan border.

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